Born in Genova in 1896, Eugenio Montale began to study opera singing in 1915 for eight years, until the premature death of his teacher, the baritone Ernesto Sivori. He meanwhile (in 1916) started to write his first poems, which he described as musical in their inspiration. As a student at the University of Genova, Montale came into contact with the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer and Emile Boutroux, as well as with the music of Claude Debussy. Although Montale fought in the First World War in 1918, the experience did not shape his ongoing poetic production as much as would the advent of Fascism in 1922 or the Second World War. As the youngest son of a prosperous northern family, growing into adulthood during this era, Montale inherited a sense of futility, which nurtured his tendency to dabble in one thing and another (he studied opera...